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Whatcha think, Joe was perfect?
“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”
There is a current meme floating around with this Einstein quote. Investigating the veracity of the meme quote, one site concluded it was from a busy Einstein through his secretary to a bothersome reporter needing a quote.
What started my thinking of relativity Continue reading “Relativity”
These would also work as the opening lines of much longer stories. Selected Shorts, a NPR program, occasionally has a writing contest for stories of less than 300 words or so, anyway very short. These might be too short.
The Ceiling: A short story in one sentence
Wishing his nights were not inhabited by the demons of past missteps, the ghosts of lovers gone, and the general detritus of everyday living, he lay awake wondering how to get to the dawn.
Paris Dream: A short story in one sentence
She had dreamed of living in Paris her whole life, completing college successfully she moved there, only to encounter her first uncircumcised penis, immediately deciding that Schenectady was not so bad after all.
The first story obviously came Continue reading “2 One sentence short stories”
Living intimately long-term with someone can be a wonderful experience, and at times it can be a bit strange.
Señora and I were stripping the sheets from the bed in preparation of laundering them. We had completed the task of removing the bed sheets, and I was standing next to the bed momentarily still. The mental gears were actually churning, and I was forming a question in my mind, “When was the last time we washed the mattress pad?” Before I could utter the inquiry she said to me, “Do you think we need to wash the mattress pad?”
Now, Señora is very intuitive when it comes to people. The mattress pad was not particularly dirty; it had just been a while. Perhaps I was staring a bit at the pad, and she picked up on that. At the time it very much felt like she had read my mind.
This is not an uncommon occurrence for us, but it does seem that most of the time it is her picking up on what I was about to say or do.
Whatever it was and is, it is still spooky!
John Carter had the capability of preventing the Martians from reading his mind. Perhaps I should have a conversation with him about his method.
And so it goes.
The beginning of last week Señora became very ill. We thought she was having an attack of sinusitis or possibly the flu. A few days into it, she lost her sense of taste. Despite having had both doses of the Moderna vaccine, she tested positive for COVID. After a miserable weekend she had the infusion treatment Monday, and she is improving. She remains very fatigued and is still missing the flavor of food.
Out of an abundance of caution, Señora suggested Continue reading “We Bonded”
Should I be concerned? Señora sent me this cartoon the other day…
Señora and I are friends with a couple, Harry and Susan, who live a little north of Chicago. A few weeks ago they drove down to visit their son in Springfield, IL, and afterwards they passed a couple days in the St. Louis area to visit with us and Susan’s sister. We had dinner with them one night on our patio and dinner the next night at her sister’s house. After dinner each night we passed many agreeable hours on our patio gabbing and partaking of water and sunlight that nature had graciously turned into the pleasant and pleasing beverage called wine.
On the night we ate dinner at our house we were having a bit of a problem with flies. I started talking about wanting to get one of those guns that shoots salt in order to hunt down flies. A week or so after their visit, there arrived an unexpected package Continue reading “Rev. Joe Uncovers an International Conspiracy”
I was speaking with one of my Spanish tutors, Micaela, this morning. Mica lives in a small jungle town in Ecuador, but she has a good internet connection. She is around 30 and an excellent conversationalist. We been working together for more than 2 years and have a friendly relationship. For my part, I always enjoy our hour together every couple weeks, and she seems to do so also.
I sent her a few pictures of Cannon Beach in Oregon, then asked her is she remembered the movie Goonies, it being an extremely popular movie in its day, and having scenes in the movie set at Cannon Beach. Even though American movies and television programs are very popular there, she did not remember this movie .
I sent her a link to the IMDB page for Goonies. After looking at the page, she said, “Oh that movie was made in 1985 – before I was born!”
Grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe… got to love this getting old…the human race marches on.
There are a couple skills that a person needs when they start a language learning journey, but that are not mentioned in the syllabus. One is that you need to accept making lots of mistakes and the other is that you need to be able to laugh at yourself. It took me a while to realize this. Self-deprecating humor is my forte, but it is difficult accepting the making of errors, partly because I am a bit of a perfectionist, ask anyone who has programmed behind me, partly because I could not laugh at myself about those mistakes, partly because I hate feeling stupid in front of someone else, it is bad enough in front of yourself. It is the last that has flattened my Spanish learning curve, but I am somewhat more accepting of my foibles now.
I read an article on language learning sometime ago, and one of their theories was that it took 10,000 Continue reading “Soy un comediante”
On either side of our driveway are two large trees. On the right is a sycamore tree that towers above our two story house. On the left is a sweet gum tree, tall for its species, with an impressive canopy. One thing I have always liked about this arrangement is the shade they give our principle vehicles. With the garage being filled with kayaks and my baby – Li’ Blue – aka a certain Mazda MX-5 Miata, the other cars cannot find a home inside. Of course if you are going to have tree limbs over cars, you will have the occasional avian calling card on your vehicle. This has been an infrequent and bearable problem… Continue reading “Revengeful Robin…”
More often than I would like to own up to, I revert to being a 13 year old boy. One of my less than adult behaviors is enunciating the name Ralph while I eructate (burp). Yes, I know, boys will be boys…
I did so this morning and Señora asked me, “who is Ralph?”
“I don’t know, it is just something I say,” I answered.
She next asked, “Have you ever known any Ralphs?”
“Well”, I said, “Not that I recall, have you?”
“Nope, me neither,” she added.
“It is not a very common name now days,” was my brilliant response.
Señora then proceeded to say Ralph several ways, adding that it was a harsh name when spoken.
Thinking of Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners I said, “An easy name for your wife to yell at you meanly.”
Not missing a beat Señora replied, “David works pretty good too.”
Related??? – At one point my brother Mark could recite the alphabet while burping… I don’t know if he is still in practice.